


Ambivalence

by joouheika



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:48:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joouheika/pseuds/joouheika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren definitely can't return the mantle now. [post-episode 22]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambivalence

For tonight it seems they’ve left him alone.

Within the chaos that follows.

It’s often he’s left in this room by himself, with merely a lock and maybe a guard. Usually it’s Mikasa. There are no others capable now. Commander Erwin and Corporal Levi are busy.

He hasn’t seen Corporal Levi for some time.

When Eren asks after him Mikasa becomes more withdrawn than she usually is, tense and quiet, violently so as if she’s carrying something sharp and heavy. He doesn’t want to push her. If she wants to tell him she eventually will, if she sees he wants to know badly even if she doesn’t want to tell him she may eventually.

He tries to return her the mantle he’d been covered in, it’s hers isn’t it? She doesn’t have one he notices.

She won’t take back the mantle, she says that one isn’t hers.

He tries the other but that one is Eren’s, it’d be greedy of her to take any more of his.

She won’t tell him whose mantle it’d been that had covered him.

It’s Hanji who tells him. She reveals it to him during a checkup. Fretting how he’s healing but healing slowly. At least he hadn’t gotten as badly injured as Corporal Levi, that stubborn bastard- Hanji had laughed at that but seeing the way Eren had tensed up, ah he hadn’t known? Assures him it’s bad but nothing that can’t be healed. Corporal Levi had gotten injured fighting the female titan, retrieving Eren. Part of the problem had been Levi pretending nothing was wrong with his leg after. He had to fake he’d not been injured for the sake of morale (what little remained if any) for the rest of them.

He’d used Eren as a cover to have Hanji check the wound. He, her, Eren and Mikasa into the fringes of some woods. First he’d had Hanji make sure Eren was alright before having her patch up what she could of his leg. They’d have to get an actual medic when they returned to Wall Rose.

The entire time she said, Corporal Levi would not allow Eren to leave his sight. Even after they left the woods, with Mikasa carrying him. It was only after Mikasa had settled Eren in one of the few carts they still had- that Levi, looking for a few seconds longer, as if he were concerned if his eyes did leave Eren, Eren would not be present on another glance- it was only after a second perhaps too long or too soon depending- with no indication of contemplation- that Corporal Levi took off his mantle and covered Eren in it.

Only then could he tear his eyes away, Hanji said.

Mikasa present by the doorway, she’d finally in a voice that sounded like confession, agreed that all Ms Hanji said to be true.

What Mikasa doesn’t tell Eren is she gave her mantle to Corporal Levi. She’d told him the slight added length would help conceal his wound… that was why she was giving him her mantle. No other reason.

(He had saved Eren-)

Corporal Levi had nodded to her, after she draped it over him. He’d latched it on himself. He’d glanced at Eren, almost assured before his regular expression resumed- gloomy, exhausted. Given the circumstances it wasn’t out of place. He’d left telling Mikasa to look after Eren and then-

She always has, she does now.

Hanji tells Eren his pulse had been a bit high but otherwise he’s on the mend.

Not to worry.

\--

There’s all to worry.

He’d noticed it but made no connections.

How much more worn this mantle is. How it fits a touch looser about the shoulders, the shorter length-

Eren lays the mantle neatly across his bed for now. It’d not been his bed before, but now they’ve allowed him a room instead of the dungeon. He draws his hands across the mantle before he brings them to draw down to the edges of his shirt. He peels his shirt off, tossing it aside along with his trousers, the rest of his clothes, into a heap on the floor.

Usually he folds them. But without his usual dictator of discipline present, the true owner of this mantle- he can’t bring himself to care.

Besides-

He isn’t any good is he?

Eren climbs into bed, drawing the mantle up over him, like it’d been in the cart. The warmth, the scent, is his own now. How had he not noticed it to be Corporal Levi’s- well it wasn’t like he had a nose like Mr Mike’s.

Still he inhales it, imagines. Chiding. These are the wings that had saved him. That’d he’d seen flying over to rescue them at the end of the operation of Trost.

He’d been weak, more than a little feverish when Armin had pulled him out from his titan form, but still, clearly it remains in his memory- these wings, and Corporal Levi’s voice asking much like-

_You brat. What are you doing?_

Yes, something like that.

Eren slides the mantle down, rubs the coarse fabric upon his body. Presses himself to it beneath his hands before bunching it around his painful erection, he pumps himself a few times through it, biting back his short gasps and moans. He mustn’t be loud.

He can imagine it.

Eren can see it.

How Corporal Levi’s gaze must have been in the forest. Like it so often was when they were together. On his back, his neck, his face. Calculating. Expectant. It’d made him uncomfortable. What if he couldn’t live up to Corporal’s- to everyone’s (his own) expectations?

He’d try his best but- what if it wasn’t very good?

(It hadn’t.)

He wants to give it, what Corporal Levi wants of him he wants to give it to him-

(He wants to be worthy enough to give himself to him.)

Eren brings a hand up to his mouth; then tears it away, clutching the bedding ashamed.

He’d made the wrong the choice. Everyone is dead because of it. Corporal Levi had gotten injured because of it. To protect him. For duty. It is all his fault. Humanity’s strongest soldier, how Eren would have liked to have seen Corporal Levi fight. If only Corporal Levi had been with them- if only Eren had transformed sooner-

Eren imagines Corporal Levi in this room with him.

Knows that gaze he saw, and has always seen. It’s upon him again, searching, demanding.

Corporal Levi would approach him, measured, controlled. As he thinks of what sort of punishment Eren needs. To get the point he’s so direly missing across.

Eren imagines Corporal leaning over him, a noise of disgust too much the effort to entirely make, not when Levi could just press a finger down hard, into the fabric that covers the tip of Eren’s cock. Scolding, he can’t have his mantle back now can he?

Eren is alive but he’s also-

Dirty.

A bad boy.

He’d take Eren in hand himself, harshly, he’d grip Eren until Eren thought he’d at his limit. Through the fabric of the mantle. It’s more than he deserves. Corporal shouldn’t touch him. He is dirty. He’d been wrong. The blood is on his hands. All over him, staining him- even so Corporal Levi had covered him in his mantle. Protected him. Saved him. Again.

(Corporal Levi probably doesn’t blame him at all. It’s Levi who is in charge, it’s his responsibility. To have chosen who he did. To have done what he did. You cannot know what you decided to be the right choice until only after all is done.)

Eren is not done.

(Even so,)

Corporal Levi would reprimand him.

Talkative today.

Yes, Eren is a bad boy. But he’s just in need of some discipline. It’s been a while hasn’t it? Despite Eren’s earlier thoughts, rationale- Corporal Levi would flip him over, his legs would tangle in the mantle, the fabric now drawn tightly over his throbbing erection, horrendously painful from his own hand and Levi’s teasing. Levi would grope his ass, spread him open. Enter him- and teach him exactly the sort of lesson he needs.

Eren presses three of his fingers inside himself. Drawing them in and out, probing, not nearly enough. On his knees, rutting himself against the mantle then back on his fingers, imagining Corporal Levi’s breath against his neck, but more than anything his stare- expectant, too expectant- Eren doesn’t know _what_ Corporal Levi wants- he doesn’t know what he should do, if Corporal Levi could just plainly, clearly tell him then- he will do it! Without fail, if it’s an order, if Corporal Levi could please order him-

He’s being loud now.

He didn’t want to risk biting his hand so he can’t cover his mouth with either.

They’re both busy anyway as he clutches Corporal Levi’s mantle around his dick. Buries his fingers deeper inside himself, wondering if it’s rough enough to be like if Corporal Levi would be to fuck him.

Knows it isn’t and cries from need.

Cries when he comes, trying to arch every which way, his mouth pressed to the hood of the mantle.

He draws his fingers out. More than a little blood on them. Pulls the mantle over himself, first like it’d been in the cart again. Smearing his semen all up and down his belly. It’s warm. It stains through the fabric, soaks it.

Before moving to pull the mantle around himself. Rolls over. Lies down. Wearing Corporal’s mantle… he draws up the hood. Sleepy now. Curling his legs up, Eren hugs them to his chest, his dirty stomach, as he settles on his side and wonders how he’ll clean this all up.

If Corporal Levi were here he could tell him.


End file.
